Annie Marie Patrick

Well, it must be true because in her 101 years, she lived longer than anybody that most of us know except from TV - where Annie also made her appearance with Willard Scott’s feature on the morning news when she turned 100.

Annie Marie Foster was born to Mae Prince Neill Foster (Oller) and William Foster on April 8, 1916 in Natchez, MS. She was the oldest of five children - Milton Rudolf Foster (Bootsie), Nelda Jean Foster, Willie Mae Foster, and James Allen Foster (Sonny), all who preceded Annie in death. The family lived in Natchez with Annie’s grandmother, aunts and cousins. She told the story of being afraid to take a bath during a thunderstorm, because once she and her young cousins were bathing when lightning struck the bathroom pipes. No one was hurt, but it frightened all the children and became a story Annie never forgot.

During the Great Depression and families moved around and did what they could to survive. Mr. Foster traveled the country as an organ accompanist for silent movies until economic times meant theaters could no longer afford musicians. Mae and the children moved to Houston when Annie was a teenager, and the two of them worked together in a local cafe. Two of the children were cared for by other families, and Annie spent some time in a girls’ school. Mae Oller eventually got a position at Sinclair Oil Company, where she worked for many years until she retired. Annie graduated in 1933 from Jeff Davis High School (from which singer Kenny Rogers also graduated, according to HISD).

In Houston, Annie met and married Houston Edgar Patrick, who coincidentally also was born in Natchez, MS. Together they had four children, raised and sold Rhode Island Red chickens, farmed and did other work, including building their home on Griggs Road by their own labors.

Annie was one of the few women in the mid-19th Century who became a single mother and then worked proudly alone to care for her children. She attended business college and went on to become a secretary at an insurance company in Houston, dreaming of a day when she could work for NASA. She applied and took the civil service exam while NASA was still on the rise in Houston, located in several different buildings around the city. By the time she convinced them to hire her, the different offices had been organized into the Johnson Space Center in Clear Lake City, where Annie worked in Building 16 for 32 years. She saw training for the Gemini and Apollo missions and later for the Shuttle program.

Annie Marie Patrick is survived by her four children: Jeanette Marie Reed; Carole Ann Clarke and husband, Chuck Clarke; Houston Neill Patrick and wife, Sonya Patrick; and Hope Eileen Pace; eleven grandchildren and numerous great grandchildren, and many other nieces, nephews and their children, as well as friends from church and her work, all who will miss her very much.